But if we halve or even quarter this exaggerated figure, the kernel of truth that remains is daunting, and the policy effects were undeniable. A Klan spokesman claimed - in a moment of megalomania - that 26 governors and 62 percent of Congress were Klansmen. The Klan of the 1920s stands out as national, impressive, and frightening, with many electoral victories to its credit. What made it particularly important was its reach beyond the South, a perspective examined in Linda Gordon’s new book, The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political Tradition. Originally formed as a vigilante group in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, the Klan’s comeback in the 1920s was sudden and grandiose. WHILE MANY AMERICANS associate the Ku Klux Klan with violence against Civil Rights movement marchers in the 1950s and ’60s or the recent catastrophe in Charlottesville, Virginia, these versions of the hate group were not the largest or most influential.
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